Under Thea's pressure and cold glare, the around twenty middle stage Stellar ranked guards, couldn't let alone resist but even talk, despite being underwater it was clear they were sweating maybe because their sweat had a different density than regular water making it visible, as they inwardly cursed.
'Damn, how can we even answer under this horrifying pressure!', they screamed in their hearts.
Daimon slightly smirked as he observed the current situation, those were all entry level middle stage Stellar ranks, even of there were more than a dozen of them joining hands, they would be unable to lay a single finger on Thea whose battle prowess can rival high stage Stellar ranks.
That being said, he was intrigued by how easily she was suppressing them, one thing was Thea intimidating enemies with a simple glance, something she can do thanks to the wild aura she has developed after winning so many battles through her life, it's the kind of oppression that a civilian would feel in front of an experienced warrior.
But the previous wouldn't cause such a reaction, one thing is intimidating and a completely different case is paralyzing the enemy like she did, the latter might be achieved with mana pressure when the difference in realms is quite large, or with special means like Daimon's Overlord's Pride or through bloodline suppression like Agrak.
Sure, just by being from a higher ranked race would be enough to instill fear on others, Daimon can do that, but just relying on that it wouldn't be possible to get a paralyzing result.
One would be inclined to believe that it is bloodline suppression, but Thea's race isn't related to these natives, otherwise Thalia would have conquered them a long time ago, anyway this mystery could be left for later, Daimon saw the water on a spot behind the group of guards, blur and then a newcomer appeared.
This newcomer was like the other guards, he had mostly human appearance, looking like a middle age brown haired man in his late thirties and radiating the pressure of an entry level high stage Stellar rank, the major difference between a human and him is the fact that he had pointy ears and blue scale patches here and there, some on his arms, some on his legs and even some on his face.
"Please quell your anger young miss, his excellency the Duke ordered the border patrol to prevent you from entering if you brought anyone besides the "irreplaceable" ally that you mentioned to us... as I sign of honesty I came out unarmed, so please release your pressure", said the man with a sigh.
'We the guardians of the border being forced to offend an esteemed guest of her highness the royal princess over some petty grudges', he thought.
"And why would I do that Karaam, based on this welcome prepared for me, I'm seriously temped to sever any ties with your kingdom and leave you all to your luck, after all if I remember correctly, it was your kingdom the one who asked for my help not the other way around".
The captain of the border patrol Karaam had a difficult expression on his face as he answered with an honest voice.
"Don't take it to heart, the Duke didn't break any rules either, bringing outsiders inside the royal city is a sketchy matter, let me apologize on his stead and personally escort your group to the residence of her highness", he said.
Thea turned to see Daimon who nodded at her, the captain of the border guards was being honest, that being said, Daimon casually added.
"If I see the slightest sign of this being a trap, we'll slaughter everyone in this city, starting with these guards", he said as he pointed at the group of guards.
Let alone the guards who were sweating bullets still being restrained by Thea's aura, Karaam himself inhaled a breath of cold air, in his experience when someone from the young generation speaks such words, there is a lot of boasting and bluffing on it, but that silver haired masked youth had no such things in his words, so either he was a really good liar or... he was used to it, either way it made the captain wish not to meddle with the silver haired youth more than necessary.
"I understand, please follow me", said the captain of the border guards as he guided Daimon and the others towards the gate of the city, the gatekeepers were also his subordinates so ignoring all the control protocols they passed through the gates, which for Zia only became visible after she was at the other side, for her this they entered an underwater cave.
But once inside, a giant city covered by an invisible dome was revealed, surprisingly inside the city there was no water, which made Daimon wonder what was the race of these natives, they lived underwater and yet their royal city had air to breath.
Sensing Daimon's curiosity, Thea smiled as she explained.
"According to what I know, only those with the blood of the royal family can breathe underwater, it's not just this city, the other ones are the same with the exception of certain places, that detection array engraved in water we found earlier is also used here for restricted areas".
Daimon nodded, while Karaam inwardly sighed at the fact that an outsider like Thea knew such secrets that only a few high ranked officers and the royal family knew about.
After that, they remained silent the rest of the travel, Daimon was unfazed by the royal city, despite its interesting sight as they were encompassed by ocean his mind was focused on deciphering what were Thea's requirements to complete her challenge, he knew that Thea was related to the "legacy" left behind for Marcus, but her process was unlike the other girls who were related to a legacy or hidden gem, since she partially progressed instead of being either a 0 or a 1.
'It could be that the requirements aren't focused on a single aspect unlike the others, one aspect is for sure dealing with Thalia, these natives could also be involved since they seem to be easily intimidated by Thea', thought Daimon, ultimately, he inwardly shook his head, it was to soon to jump into conclusions, perhaps after knowing their host who supposedly belonged to the royal family, he might be able to get some answers.
"Here we are, please notify the guards and then I will take my leave", said Karaam as the arrived at the entrance of a wall that led to a castle, only for his eyes to widen in surprise when Thea took out the token granted to her, which made the gate automatically open for them, in other words she had the authority to directly enter without even notifying the gatekeepers.
'That despicable old snake, if we had caused harm to these people her highness would have sent us to the abyss prison as in the best-case scenario!', inwardly screamed Karaam as he bowed towards Thea before leaving in a hurry to have a nice chat with his subordinates.
Daimon didn't pay that guy too much attention, instead he immediately asked Rita to scan the inside of the castle to prevent any "surprises".
"Okay, let's start with the basics, this planet Draim used to be a part of a faraway galaxy that suffered a catastrophe, the last surviving people of the strongest races migrated to this planet and used every resource they had to create a barrier around the ocean, hoping that it would at least give us time to think how to survive the incoming catastrophe, the barrier held out but it also isolated us for around a hundred years".
"When our ancestors came out, they realized we weren't at our galaxy, the planet ended up being dragged into a space rift and since then we have been wandering in the void, unfortunately the older survivors died the moment they set the barrier, so only young and unexperienced people remained".
"Out of them a representative was chosen from the two races and then we focused on building cities, we choose to stay under the sea since we were originally a race that lived in islands or near shores, having a deep connection with the ocean", Ferris stopped a moment before continuing.
"Unfortunately, the young survivors had little to no knowledge about our previous galaxy, so the records of back then are mostly tales and stories that their parents told them, it was said that the oldest survivors were Naomi's age, luckily with no other option the two races allied themselves and prospered, until an uninvited guest appeared in our planet, that tyrant woman who then allowed that murderer man to arrive at Draim".
"At first we managed to remain hidden from them, but after they fought to a stalemate, they focused on developing their armies and noticed us, which is what brought us to our current predicament, the two races are now facing difference in their opinions about the future".
"Our Lamia race is matriarchal not out of disparity but because we are a female exclusive race, we have the gift to only need blood to procreate and our descendants are always females, that being said a Lamia can marry and have children... the other way, and with members of the Naga race being the only other intelligent beings in the planet, over time this became a common occurrence, with a single exception the royal family".
"The Naga race on the other hand has always been strength oriented, originally the one leading them was said to be the best friend of our first leader as well, but with time the rulers changed, and friction started to appear, they did have female and males in their race, but for some reason they find us more appealing to the eye, it is said that we share an ancestor in common, but unlike us, they are limited to develop only some scale patches when they reach maturity, on the other hand when we reach a certain point we can transform out legs into a snake tail", said Ferris as she pointed at her mother.
Daimon curiously observed how the queen's green scaled tail dissolved in green light particles to reveal her gracious legs, she was even wearing high heels, which made it obvious that while the snake tail is a part of her body, the legs were so too, quite an interesting racial trait.
Some beast races back at the White Fang galaxy have both beast and human traits at the same time, for example the Revy and the werewolves, they have fox and wolf ears respectively, but they also have human ears which are most of the time hidden behind their usually long hair, that being said that's not always the case some are born with them are some aren't, but most don't really pay attention to them since their hearing is better with the beast type ones.
The difference is that those two parts don't overlap with each other, while the Lamia's snake lower part does, on the other hand that could be why they aren't born with it, but obtain it as some kind of temporal boosting type ability, concluded Daimon, the previous because now that the queen was standing on her legs, her realm fell to the middle grade high stage Stellar rank, but then he shook his head realizing an important thing, the queen had a though really hard to notice, still existing aura of weakness coming from her body.
'It was shadowed and contained by the increase on her realm that her transformation gave her, but she was poisoned and... with nether no less', thought Daimon.
The queen took the initiative to continue with the story.
"Ferris mentioned all that because said trait has been a cause of disruption between our two races for quite some time, the Naga believe that mixing our races is the road to a great advance in terms of strength but after many generations what they expected didn't happen, so they had set their eyes on the sole lineage that has avoided them, ours, their king courted me even before I ascended to the throne but I didn't respond in kind, so he now set his eyes on my daughters".
"I suffered a devious wound by a sneak attack during our last encounter with Thalia and Travis and the Naga king "casually" happened to have a cure for this strange poison that has been afflicting me ever since, of course I rejected it back then I thought it was because I found him unpleasant as a person but then...".
"If his intentions were genuine, I wouldn't mind exploring the possibility of our families stretching our bonds, so long my daughters are okay with it, then it's fine for me, traditions aren't worth a single hair of their heads for me, but while I simply couldn't pinpoint why, my instincts told me not to trust the Naga king anymore".
Daimon nodded, now that he had Agrak's memories about Nethereals, things were much simpler.
"Well, you were right, you have been poisoned with nether, as to which type of nether I don't know, but I do have a way to cure it, however we'll have to get rid of that Naga king and anyone involved with his deal".
"Nether what is that, something that Thalia created and what deal are you referring to, we can never collude with those two, thanks to a collective racial contract that was created by the two first ancestors?", asked the queen with a doubt filled voice.
Leaving aside the fact that such a contract was of Daimon's interest, so he will have to further elaborate into that, he shook his head to then say.
"That guy isn't colluding with anyone in this planet, but some guys that are invading the place from where Thea and I came, as to how he managed to contact them, the dimensional tunnel that led me to this planet was filled with nether in a strange pure state, so it wouldn't too farfetched to think the Naga king managed to obtain some only to be affected by it.
"Nether feeds on strong emotions, usually negative ones, he probably resonated with one of the strong nethereals one that would have the strength to reach this place to communicate with him", said Daimon.
The queen was in awe, then anger filled her heart, they already had their hands full with Thalia and Travis and now the stupid Naga king got himself involved with a hostile outsider race just to laid his hand on her and her daughters, it was a bad taste joke.
Taking a deep breath after pondering the repercussions that this revelation would bring to the Meluin kingdom which was more divided than ever, the queen gazed at Daimon to then say.
"I used to be superior to him in terms of strength, but now I can only match up to him if I use my Lamia form, the problem is that it consumes a lot of stamina to fight in that state for long periods of time, if we fight in a war, chances are we'll lose so...".
"Also, we don't have time for a war, time flows different in this planet since we are inside the void but at most, I can stay two to three days which would be around two to four hours outside, it will have to be a fast, lethal and clean strike, all the problematic guys must be gathered and taken down on the spot", added Daimon, which made the queen rub her temples for a moment before her eyes sparkled as she gazed at Daimon.
"An event that would force the Naga king and all the involved to appear, and justify the appearance of the strong and renowned members of the Lamia army at the same time, I think I have something in mind that would fit those criteria", amusingly said the queen as she sent a few messages through a communication device of some kind, which made Daimon have a strange premonition.